Aesthetic Hedonism and The Problem of Akratic Art

Aesthetic Hedonism and The Problem of Akratic Art

Philosophy

Is aesthetic value tied to hedonic value?

Cyrus Khor

2025

Eileen John

Within philosophical aesthetics, the question of what makes an object aesthetically valuable remains a perennial one. One influential response is that of aesthetic hedonism, which reduces an object’s aesthetic value to its capacity to afford pleasure. This paper challenges the hedonic view by drawing upon an underexplored aesthetic phenomenon: aesthetic akrasia, which presents a disjunction between one’s value judgement and one’s derivation of pleasure. Situating aesthetic akrasia against the premises of hedonism reveals that hedonism not only fails to account for aesthetic akrasia, but also misconstrues the nature of the relation between aesthetic judging and liking. In developing this account, this paper demonstrates how the premises of hedonism necessitate that liking unconditionally follows from judging aesthetic value - a claim that contradicts aesthetic reality. In light of this, the paper concludes that hedonism is increasingly untenable as a theory of aesthetic value.

Aesthetics, Philosophy of Art, Hedonism, Akrasia, Aesthetic Value